43,502 ish days of quarantine has really provided me with a lot of time to think. One idea I’ve been giving thought to is what COVID has and has not changed in my life. For instance, COVID hasn’t changed how much I like specialty goat cheese and arugula pizza from a favorite local restaurant here in Phoenix, but it has changed the way in which I acquire and demolish said pizza. COVID hasn’t changed my love for online shopping, but it has changed the style of clothes I shopped for (less buttons, and more elastic please!). COVID hasn’t changed my desire to see and experience the world, but it has canceled a lot of our travel plans. COVID hasn’t changed who I am at my core, but it has altered my perspective on a lot of things.
After reflecting on myself, using what I now call the “COVID CHANGE CHALLENGE,” I started to apply it to other aspects of our life. Following our son Fritz’s diagnosis of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy in 2017, our family started a small non-profit called Fritz&Friends. Our family and our foundation is rooted in the belief that ‘Strength is more than muscle.’ Using that as a starting point, we took time to take the COVID CHANGE CHALLENGE on behalf of our nonprofit.
COVID hasn’t changed what we believe about strength, but it has changed the way we share this message. COVID hasn’t changed the need to raise money to keep science moving, but it has canceled all our events for 2020. COVID hasn’t changed our mission to find a cure, but it has changed how we go about doing so. COVID hasn’t changed our desire to be strong on behalf of our son and so many others, but it has changed the ways in which we share strength.
It was in the early days of this pandemic, after all our events were canceled, that we really had to take a step back and think about how we could continue to be strong in the midst of a lot of change. This is really where this whole COVID CHANGE CHALLENGE evolved. We knew we needed to focus on our core belief of; strength being more than muscle, and from there we started to think about what that meant for our nonprofit moving forward.
So we created this list:
Strength is more than muscle;
Strength is….
- being open to change, not resenting it.
- creative thinking.
- new ideas.
- adapting, not stressing.
- Learning new things.
- Pivoting.
- Partnering.
- Collaborating.